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Amazon Robot Contest May Accelerate Warehouse Automation
moon_unit2 writes Amazon is organizing an event to spur the development of more nimble-fingered product-packing robots. Participating teams will earn points by locating products sitting somewhere on a stack of shelves, retrieving them safely, and then packing them into cardboard shipping boxes. Robots that accidentally crush a cookie or drop a toy will have points deducted. The contest is already driving new research on robot vision and manipulation, and it may offer a way to judge progress made in the past few years in machine intelligence and dexterity. Robots capable of advanced manipulation could eventually take on many simple jobs that are still done by hand.
I've worked in an Amazon warehouse.
They already have robots drive shelves of product to the pickers, so all they do is stand there and pluck things off shelves all day.
The problems at Amazon aren't the work, it's the artificial conditions imposed by management. ALl workers are treated like thieves, the facility is incredibly cold (like 60F in summer cold, when it's 90F outside) in places, way too hot in others (100F+), there are only cement floors with terrible rubber mats at standing locations, and workers are held WAY too closely to their time punches (i.e. it's a 5 minute walk from your station to the break room, your 15 minute break is now a 5 minute break, too bad, so sad).
It's also one of those workplaces that emphasizes "culture" heavily, aka does daily pep rallies and wastes a ton of time on false morale, instead of trying to have happier workers.
Obligatory: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave